Shadow
by Arsenic Allure
Summary: Light was not attractive anymore, and even through the pale shine that she presented, I saw a darkness that was tainted: something like a shadow. [Nazgul centered: oneshot, movieverse]


Disclaimer: The Nine and all affiliates are copyrighted to, orginally, J.R.R. Toliken and by extension Peter Jackson and co. _The Unforgiven Two _[song; in italics remains the property of Metallica. 

**Shadow  
**  
_What I've felt, what I've known,_  
_Turn the pages, turn the stone,_

_-x-x-x-  
_

We are the Nazgûl; The Nine Dark Riders that inspire fear in everything, kill everyone and never die. Nightmares, poison and darkness win us power.

We are immortal; that does not mean we are alive. We were, once, as the Nine King's of Men. But not now; too old, too evil to retain our mortal bodies, we live in a spirit world. We're cloaked solely in black, dependant on the fear of our prey and are forced to reside forever In darkness.

I am Nine. I still remember that wretched goodness that was once inside me, and how it fought hard, so hard, clinging to a false hope that maybe it could have both its desires. But the Good did not know what I did. It greedily thought it could have both: the love of men and the love of the Ring. But the Ninth Ring's power is too great, and so it fell into death's outstretched claw.

The Fall is something that we, the Nine Dark Riders, do not speak of; how we had to destroy our pasts. Dutiful to Lord Sauron and the power that he has granted us, we do nothing but strive to raise him to power again through his One Ring. And we are succeeding.

But it comes still, that Light that forces some of my never-ending black to be a pitiful grey shadow. It comes from a place I dare not reach. I always thought it had gone, that I had made sure he was True Dead, but I was wrong.

The shadow, it hurts. It feels like revenge; a revenge that I deserve.

_-x-x-x-_

I think I had a name. I don't remember it now, only faces flashing from the haze of what used to be. I know I had one, though. The repetition of a sound, two syllables that I can't make out, like whispers, falling leaves, falling snow, softly trickling into my ears like the unknown creek that joins it.

The face I remember, my wife, queen, had striking ice-blue eyes and thin wisps of white hair falling across their gaze. She had worry lines creased into her forehead, and this face, it visits me every night in the same dream. We slept then, yes, even though we were consumed with greed and lust for a power that we could not control. Of course, we started to have more and more blackouts as a result. We came to realise this. It didn't stop us because we didn't care. We were too far gone.

She talks to me about anything that I want to hear, especially our son's new talent of sparring. I told her I was proud of him and asked her to give him my praise. She nodded quietly, and we both turned our gazes to the magnificent emerald oak, its leaves trembling in the soft breeze. We sat together next to it, enjoying each others company. If I had her in my gaze instead of the coming dawn, I could have seen the glistening of unshed tears in the corner of her eyes. I would have asked what was wrong, and then maybe, maybe things might have been different. But she swallowed the emotions before I could turn my face towards her, so that all I saw was the mask for her inner turmoil. We said our goodbyes, and I was shaken awake by the dark cloaked, pale skinned skeleton of Five.

We all fell further as the weeks went by, camping in one spot one night and another next, and suddenly we didn't need the firelight to see, or the warmth that it brought. Animals weren't so tolerant of our presence, colours hurt our eyes, and we started to fade away. We thought it an Elvin magic gone awry, too awed by the power and magnificence of our Rings to accuse them as the assailants. We should have suspected that they were killing us but we didn't. They didn't, but I couldn't help the nagging feeling about it.

Around the fire one night, all wide awake and staring into the forest edge, I sat with my partners of the dark and looked around. Each had their hoods up, and each of their Rings glistened from their finger, a white silver in the firelight. But I had not mine on, there was something about how it made me feel, just to look at it, the fading etchings, becoming pure silver without a scratch. It seemed too perfect, and, even though I felt more alive than ever, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something not quite right about it. It seemed… dead. Though passion burned off it more so than the firewood crackling in our centre circle, it was for all the wrong things: for hate, for greed, for power. My queen says that things like that are evil, if you let it consume. But the Ring's voice was louder, and I was meek in comparison. I did not put it on, but I did not speak of my doubts.

The weeks continued to pass, more time fell away, and I was the only one without my hood raised. The others could not bear to see my naked face, fading into the otherworld as it was, because it was a reminder of something that they had lost and I only earned the title 'Nine' due to this slow journey to ultimate invisibility.

Tonight there had been a change in the dream. We'd didn't speak. We always spoke. There was a silence so heavy, so awkward and full of inexpressible questions. It seemed to weigh heavily atop the tombstones of the cemetery, this place of death our nightly meeting place that should have been a clear warning about the prevailing darkness. It's cries went unanswered.

So we sat down, and leaned back against the large, green oak tree. I looked up at the night sky, and wondered what I was doing, why wasn't I waking up? It was nearing dawn. We didn't say goodbye.

There's a time when I could have turned back towards her light, but I was consumed by my Ninth Ring. This human heart that is heavy in my chest is weak, and it beats a symphony that is harmonising closer and closer towards the dark. Light was not attractive anymore, and even through the pale shine that she presented, I saw a darkness that was tainted: something like a shadow.

_-x-x-x-_

_Come lay beside me, this won't hurt, I swear,  
She loves me not, she loves me still, but she'll never love again_

On the next night, as we lie underneath the stars, glistening through the oak, her soft voice sounded out into the darkness. "I'm dead," she whispered, "Don't you remember?" Of course I didn't remember. "Your son too, long ago, not by a natural cause." A pause. "I know you don't remember. You would have been… different. You would have embraced your demons instead of fighting… long ago you would have left this place."

I didn't like her tone. "And you would not? How am to believe this? How—" but as I was hissing those accusing words, half at my wife and half at the sky, I let my gaze sway from the black sky and rest heavily on her face. Dried blood caked across her neck, the colour of the sunset at its deepest hue. Porcelain skin was tarnished with it, and the cut that killed her, a large slit right across the jugular, mocked me. It laughed. The sudden sight, all within the space of a hurried heartbeat, evoked a hissing breath from my full-blooded throat. "Who did this to you?" I choked out, forcing the words from between clenched teeth; the tightness a symptom of the pain that I felt at such a violation to one of mine.

We both sat up, and her blind eyes, now white with death, penetrated me, so much that it hurt. "You did," she hissed, like a snake, a cold-blooded sound to match the ice gaze that seemed so foreign on her once lovely face. "You did this to us." All at once, my wife was not before me; instead a cold almost vampiric blood-lusting queen whom I did not know, of whom I was so afraid. There was no Ring in these dreams to save me. There was only the oak, and the stars, and the graves that seemed too appropriate now that my escape had turned to dust.

But I didn't feel how I thought I should. I was angry, irate, and my heart was a leaded ache in my heaving chest. And though we stood up together, facing as if we would duel, there was something else, some evil that I recognise only now, later, when everything is coming to a close. As the evil of the Ring was invading my dreams [nightmares, a sense of aloof, uncaring lack of emotions for the situation arose within me. I was expressionless, ghost-like, staring blankly as slow, golden oak leaves fell to the dead earth. I was being woken up and her form became that of Seven, roughly shaking me awake. He leers down at me, red eyes glinting through the hood, and I suppress the shiver that runs down my spine. And that mocks me, it's laughing at me. Everything seems to be laughing.

After that, I had dreams of being alone in the graveyard, its ground now coated in a thin layer of chilly white frost. I could still sense her, that calm, a scent of lilies hanging in the air. It must have been her; there were no flowers in this place, or plants, but for the oak that looms across its expanse, ever watchful.

It's dying, though. A part of me feels for it, but the Ring, which is now present on my finger, culls that quickly. The branches have lost all of their leaves, and those that remain, cling on for dear life. Soon its roots will shrivel, and it will become a hollow skeleton of the magnificence that it once was, it will be dead. Dead - never to return and never to live again. It's too sick to save itself. It's too consumed.

Time passes. I've dug myself into a hole, and the dirt is falling back on my head. I'm going to be buried alive. I could fight my way out, dig upwards, claw. Or I could turn my tired body around and scratch desperately upwards trough the dirt to go out with a fight. But I am weak, so I keep going with my broken fingers, down, down, while my mouth fills with soil and everything that must cease ceases.

There's something I have to do. One last thing. I take this seed, and I lodge it into the dirt, hard, harder, and harder still. My fingers are bleeding, the Ring is burning and I cannot breathe. But I have done all that I can, and all that I shall.

My seed of destruction has been sown. I will have my revenge. I'll see my queen in heaven, and we'll fight this darkness together. There is no light without darkness and no darkness without light. We will exist in a compromise: our friend will be shadow.

_­-x-x-x-_

_Reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading._


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